Paranormal Activity

Oren Peli

I am hugely impressed—mystified, even—that a movie filmed on a budget of 15,000 dollars has grossed over 34 million dollars since its opening. I was not, however, impressed by the movie itself. If anything, Paranormal Activity is more a product of a brilliant viral marketing campaign than it is a product of brilliant filmmaking. 

Indie filmmaker Oren Peli clearly subscribes to the less is more philosophy, such that everything about Paranormal Activity—from the plot, to the characters, to the setting—feels contained, claustrophobic, and dare I say, boring? All of the action takes place in one San Diego home, with a total of four characters, and while Peli could have used this constrained space to weave a web of terror, he ultimately fails to deliver. 

The “found footage” thriller follows engaged couple Katie (Katie Featherstone) and Micah (Micah Sloat) as they film their day-to-day lives in order to catch evidence of the malevolent presence that has infested their new home. The storyline is unabashedly sparse and unoriginal, leaving the viewer constantly waiting, hoping for something to happen. In fact, the first half hour is almost unbearably mundane as the camera follows Katie and Micah knitting, watching TV, cooking dinner, and brushing their teeth. When the hauntings finally do begin, it’s a welcome relief from the monotony of watching the daily life of a neither particularly interesting nor particularly attractive couple.

Peli plays on the age-old fear of things that go bump in the night—creaking stairs, slamming doors, flickering light—but let’s face it, those phenomena were only scary when our five-year-old selves were wrapped up in footie pajamas, not on a movie screen. While the sound of a door slamming might make us all jump in our seats a little, it’s far from the psychological suspense thriller that Paranormal Activity purports itself to be. Although some moments are genuinely creepy, they are sporadic exceptions rather than the norm.

The hauntings get progressively creepier as the nights go on, supposedly because Micah is agitating the demon by challenging it to show itself. Micah even buys an Ouija board against the express wishes of both Katie and the psychic (Mark Fredrichs), and when the Ouija board sets on fire (clearly not a good sign), Micah insists that he has everything under control. Throughout, Micah’s machismo, frat-boy attitude is so grossly inappropriate for a horror movie and more fitting for SAE Late Night that his plight is more laughable than terrifying. That being said, Sloat and Featherstone serve up authentic and talented performances despite a dull, lackluster script. 

For such a straightforward plot, you’d think that everything would make more sense than it does. But the film leaves a lot of essential questions unanswered: What is the demon? What does it want? Why is it haunting Katie? Although the psychic and Micah’s Internet research—both somewhat absurd sources—reveal some possible answers, nothing is ever definitively revealed.

We’re left perpetually waiting—waiting for answers, waiting for the next shocking surprise—but little happens to satiate our piqued curiosity. Perhaps Peli would have been more successful if he had shaved off 30 minutes of the film. After all, the repetition of the same “scary” shenanigans night after night slowly dulls our patience for when the climax finally arrives. 

The climax, like the movie itself, has been so hyped up that the effect is not nearly as terrifying as one would hope or expect. Rather, the film feels hastily drawn to a close as the pacing picks up and rushes toward the ending that we more or less expect is coming. The last 10 minutes, the scariest of the film, end on a disappointingly conventional and mediocre note. The images are reminiscent of some scenes from The Ring, though of course Paranormal Activity doesn’t have the Hollywood budget to truly create the raven-haired monsters of our nightmares.

Paranormal Activity, lauded by many as “the scariest movie ever made,” was massively overhyped and disappointing. If you happen to have retained deep-seated psychological fears of strange things under the bed or in the closet, then maybe Paranormal Activity will scare you. If you are a hipster who refuses to watch anything produced by mainstream Hollywood, then maybe you will appreciate the low-budget mockumentary feel of Paranormal Activity. Otherwise, save your 10 bucks and go watch Where the Wild Things Are. 

—Wendy Wang

This Is It

Kenny Ortega

Here’s something a little weird: At no point during Michael Jackson: This is It is there any mention of the fact that Michael Jackson is dead. Not that there’s anyone with functioning eyes and/or ears, much less anyone who paid 10 dollars to watch the man rehearse for an hour and a half, who needs to be informed, but there is something jarring about an in memoriam piece that doesn’t end with “Michael Jackson: 1958-2009.” This was clearly a deliberate choice—the opening features a Star Wars-style scroll that outlines the intentions of the This is It tour without mentioning why it will never happen, and the end, where a nod to the death seems most appropriate, simply reads, “Michael Jackson: King of Pop. Love lives forever.” OK, awesome for love, but Michael Jackson lives no more, and by avoiding bringing it up, This is It leaves its audience to remember and forget about the star’s death on their own schedule.

And it can be pretty easy to forget. This is It is basically an extended behind-the-scenes vignette, a making-of-the-tour film composed of rehearsal footage, scenes from the sets of elaborate background and intro videos, and a lot of people talking about how excited they are to be working on this project and how awesome it’s going to be. Michael is there pretty much all the time, fully focused on every choreography run-through or music workshop, but also participating in dance auditions, critiquing the CGI in the multimedia elements, holding hands, and giving inspirational speeches. He certainly doesn’t perform like he’s about to drop dead. His voice is in impressively good shape here. While he marks a lot of the songs rather than going full out, as any intelligent vocalist does during rehearsals, the moments where he sings for real are almost disturbingly reminiscent of his recorded tracks from decades ago. His dancing is actually ludicrous. Shot after shot shows Michael, a 50-year-old man weeks from death, matching his 20-something backup dancers step for step. He doesn’t falter, he doesn’t run out of energy, and every single part of his body seems to move exactly how he wants it to.

The near perfection of MJ’s dancing is where This is It starts to get a little disturbing. At first, watching him move, it is difficult to imagine that this is a man so near the end of his life. He looks invincible. But after looking a little closer, it becomes harder to understand how he managed to stay alive even this long. People joke a lot about Michael Jackson’s appearance, but in This is It he genuinely does not look human. Putting aside the skin color and wax museum facial features, which are still more off-putting than fans like to pretend, his skeletal body should not have been able to do those things. The contrast between the buff, robustly healthy backup dancers and MJ’s unsubstantial frame is unsettling, as if it takes seeing normal human bodies to remind you that no one with Michael’s complete lack of tone and muscle mass should be able to hurl his body around on stage like that without killing himself. For a long time before he actually died, Michael Jackson looked like a—really stunning—animated corpse.

But that creepshow revelation doesn’t stop This is It from being fun. Unlike so many other “backstage video of the artist” type films, this one doesn’t make much of an effort to pretend that Michael Jackson was in any way like the rest of us. Sure, he looks and moves like a complete alien, the film seems to say, but MJ never seemed particularly human anyway, so why let it bother you? Everyone in the entire project, from the elated young dancers to the seasoned band, to the director who has known Michael for decades, is completely awed by his presence. His collaborators do make suggestions, and Michael does listen and occasionally agree, but his opinions are clearly law on this tour, and everyone, no matter how professionally experienced, looks at him as if they’re internally squealing, “Oh my God, that’s actually Michael Jackson.”

As they damn well should be. Whatever else there is to say about Michael Jackson, he had a lot of songs and a lot of dance moves, and a freakishly high percentage of them are awesome. The concept of a canon is fairly repellent, but in this case it must be said: If you like any music that’s come out in the past two decades, and you don’t respect Michael Jackson, you are wrong. This is It is about a stage show, and about the dehumanizing power of fame, and about a seriously creepy-looking dude, but mostly it’s about really, really good, really, really important music. Every single one of this film’s best moments is MJ on stage, singing and dancing in his bizarrely brilliant way through one of his hits. You should see it, you should dance and groove along in your seat, and you should consider the idea that maybe once in a while, what humanity needs is someone who isn’t quite one of us.

­­ —Hannah Cousins